Putting Winds in Their Sails

Like many of her trainees, Pogell didn't start sailing until adulthood. It was only after moving to Annapolis with her daughter after a divorce that she decided to see what the fuss was about. In 1980, during a weeklong cruise on the Chesapeake Bay, she became hooked. "Sometimes we were in cold, rainy, miserable weather," recalls Vivian Harquail, who recruited Pogell and several friends for the cruise's all-female crew. "All my experienced sailing friends were down below, and who was willing to steer? Suzanne."

The trip became an annual event, and Pogell, who was then director of public affairs for Anne Arundel Community College, helped organize and plan it for the next four years. "The loudest laughter came from our boat," she remembers. The women on the other boats were usually too busy being harangued to enjoy themselves. "There were women who had been sailing 25 years who didn't know how to do the simplest things," she says. "How to get fuel, dock the boat, use the radio."

Pogell set out to teach them. In 1985, with Harquail's help, Pogell held the first Womanship class, a cruise in the British Virgin Islands. Soon after, she quit her job to launch the school with $29,000 of her own money.

There were plenty of other sailing schools, but she felt that they didn't understand women. "Before they go out on the water," Pogell says, "women need to know what to do, when to do it, why they're doing it, and how it fits into the bigger picture."

She and Harquail developed the "Womanship way." One of the guiding principles is that once women know enough to feel comfortable, they learn best by doing. Unlike other sailing schools, Womanship doesn't use chalkboards, manuals, or classrooms. There are no PowerPoint presentations or slide shows. The boat -- not a dinghy, mind you, but a good- sized boat with a cabin -- is the classroom. After an initial safety lesson below deck, during which the boat is tied at the dock, the students (up to six per boat) learn as they sail. Throughout the course, they teach one another, reinforcing what they've learned and fostering collaboration.

Aside from a couples' course, which Pogell likens to maritime marital counseling, there are no courses for men. She suspects that they would interfere with the unwritten goal of Womanship, a term she coined to mean "the fulfillment of oneself as a woman."

The single-sex setting appealed to Betsy Matthes, a former actress (she was in the 1960s cult hit Dark Shadows) and lyricist from Shelter Island, New York. "Men tend to take the lead, and women tend to assist," says Matthes, who took a six-day live-aboard course. "But at this school, women are expected to sail the boat. Everyone has responsibilities, and you have to do your part."

Even reluctant skippers, such as Lauren Wenzel of Annapolis.

"I'm kind of used to being told what to do on the water, so it was good for me to have to take responsibility," she says. After recently being laid off as a manager with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, she took a break from job hunting to attend the three-day course aboard Syrenka. "Nothing really takes the place of being handed the wheel," says Wenzel. "Feeling this big boat that you're in command of moving through the water, being the person making it go, it's an indescribable feeling."

Nobody Yells (Much)

The empowerment that can come from mastering a physical challenge is nothing new, of course. But Womanship is proof of how powerful such experiences can be. While trimming sails as a beginner, Pogell discovered that the sport was an ideal vehicle for personal growth. But she didn't realize the impact her school was having on women until they started writing to share their stories. And coming back to take another course. And applying to be instructors. More than one-third of the students and about one-quarter of the instructors are alumni. "How often do people get the opportunity to analyze what they know and what they don't know, to learn to do something they didn't think they could do?" Pogell says.

"Feeling this big boat that you're in command of moving through the water...it's an indescribable feeling."

Like steering -- and docking -- a new $100,000 boat.

On the first day of the course, Captain Kathy eases Syrenka, a gleaming Beneteau 33.1, out of Port Annapolis Marina and makes a startling announcement: "Okay, this is the last time I'll steer her. Who's first?" The crew falls silent. None of the students has experience at the helm. Finally, Cathy Dodge, a high-tech manager from Columbia, Maryland, agrees to take control of the wheel. It's enormous, like a stainless-steel hula hoop. Before long, Syrenka's sails are flying majestically, along with a magenta Womanship flag. Dodge's grin is nearly as big as the wheel. For her, the beauty of sailing, she later explains, is instant gratification. In her work life, she oversees projects that take six or more months to complete. But on the water, when she turns the wheel or adjusts the sail, the results are immediate: Whoosh. "This is so awesome," she gushes, as the steeples of the Annapolis skyline shrink in the distance.